


Cowardice

by theLiterator



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Hand Jobs, M/M, Miscommunication, Responsibility, Train Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 03:19:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12879084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: It was all a mess, and Noctis had never even wanted to be king.





	Cowardice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gladnoct week Day Four: Princess/Gladio and Noct have hatesex on the train.

_You think you’re a king, but you’re a coward._

The problem, Noct thought, staring at the ring in his hand, was not that Gladio was right. It was that he was _wrong_.

It had been so _long_ since Gladio had been wrong about what was going on in Noct’s head that it hurt, deep and low in his guts where he’d thought he’d been numb since finding out about his dad’s death, Luna’s. He wanted to curl up into a ball and hide from everything.

 _”I’ve never been a king!”_ he’d wanted to retort, but he couldn’t then. He couldn’t even hold the thought in his head now, with the edges of the ring digging into his glove and chilling his skin.

It always felt cold, no matter whether it was in his pocket or the palm of his hand or on a chain around his neck. (He’d tried, but the chill of it seemed to seep into his bones, to make everything shift slightly in his vision.)

Finally, when he didn’t feel so close to falling to pieces, he shoved the damned thing back into his pocket and forced himself to his feet. The train hit a curve on the tracks and he had to cling to the bench for balance, but then it straightened out and so did he.

Gladio wanted a king? Then first thing was first-- Gladio’d apologize for pushing Prompto like that. Prompto was Crownsguard. Prompto deserved respect.

The car he’d come from was empty except for Prompto and Ignis. He caught Prompto’s gaze for a second, then Prompto looked away, twisting his hands in his lap.

Noctis wanted to sigh, or maybe to sit down with them and cling to Ignis a little, but maybe… maybe Gladio’d had a point. He forced himself to squeeze Ignis’s shoulder like his dad and Gladio always did to reassure him, and then he passed through the car and into the next, where he found Gladio pretending to read his current romance novel, his shoulders hunched up tight and furious, his legs splayed, and three families watching him with too-wary expressions.

“Gladio,” Noctis said, straightening his spine against the desire to slouch into the bench across from his Shield and pout quietly until Gladio sighed and kicked his foot to show he was forgiven.

“I’m not the person you need to apologize to,” Gladio said, turning a page obnoxiously.

 _Knew you weren’t reading,_ Noct didn’t say.

“I’m not here to apologize,” Noctis snapped. “You should though. Prompto thinks you’re mad at him.”

“He tell you that?”

Noct resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and it paid off, because Gladio narrowed his own eyes and slammed the book shut at the lack of reaction.

He grabbed Noctis’s wrist and tried to yank him close, but Noctis held his ground.

“Really? You want to get into this now? Here?”

“No,” Noctis said coldly. “You chose the timing and the venue. We could have had this conversation in private in Altissia, or you could have waited ‘til Tenebrae, or even Cartanica. You don’t get to blame me for _your_ choices.”

“I don’t gotta,” Gladio said, standing up so he could loom over Noctis, but Noct knew what he was doing, channeling his inner… Clarus, probably. Hopefully. “I’m busy blaming you for _yours_.”

And that was where whatever borrowed authority Noct’d had failed him, because he knew his dad would have silenced Gladio with a _look_ , and Clarus might have snapped out a perfunctory apology, but Noct knew if he even _tried_ , Gladio would just laugh at him, and he also knew that he wouldn’t be able to take it if that happened.

He’d done _so well_ , not crying in front of any of them after Luna’s death, and he didn’t want to break that streak. Especially not with Gladio. Especially not _now_.

He missed what they’d had before Altissia, before they’d ever left Insomnia: a comfortable friendship, stolen kisses after practice, Gladio’s hands on his skin, holding him, knowing him, _caring_.

“Come on,” Gladio snapped finally. “There’s too many people here.”

Noctis stared at him, and tried belatedly to tug his wrist free.

“You’re supposed to go fix things with Prompto,” he said stupidly.

Gladio raised an eyebrow and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, getting minutely taller. Just that hairsbreadth more intimidating, and Noct edged back out of instinct.

Gladio scoffed, dropped his wrist, and turned on his heel, storming out of the car, in the opposite direction of Ignis and Prompto.

Noct bit back a curse and stumbled slightly in his rush to follow.

One of the women in the car stopped him, her fingers light and non-threatening on his clothes.

Noct startled and turned to her, his back choosing that moment to send a jolt of pain through his legs, and unconsciously he stuffed his hand in his pocket and let the chill of the ring’s magic counteract the sudden pain.

“Are you all right, sir?” she asked quietly. 

Noct forced himself to nod at her, to smile.

She smiled back, a soft gentle motherly smile that made him take a step back. “If you’re sure. It’s only, if that man is bothering you, I can have the Imperial Guard arrest him at the next stop. You wouldn’t have to say anything at all. He wouldn’t have to know it was you.”

Noct cringed at the idea of dealing with Nifs, and shook his head again. “It’s just a stupid argument,” he said, and in trying to make his voice sound completely at ease, it mostly just came out in a whisper.

She nodded, but he could tell he hadn’t convinced her.

That was a problem for a couple hours in the future, when they stopped in Cartanica. Gladio was of more immediate concern.

“Thank you though,” he said, still whispering, and on a whim he pulled one of the ascension coins he’d been obsessively collecting out of nowhere and offered it to her.

She took it, looking at it askance for a moment before her expression cleared and she looked back at him, giving him a thorough once-over that must have told her something he definitely didn’t intend to tell anyone by his appearance.

Maybe across the water it _wasn’t_ safe to wear all-black after all, but he knew the uniform made Ignis feel more useful. He also knew that Gladio would take him changing into something a little less royal as yet more shirking of his responsibilities, so he was stuck with this: a woman on the train who could tell exactly who he was because Gladio had caught too much of her attention.

Well, if Noct were honest with himself, it was at least halfway his fault, but… but.

He smiled at her, and she nodded soberly back; and then he fled the car, chasing after Gladio.

Glado reached out from an empty sleeping compartment he'd found, and grabbed Noct's arm. Noct whirled and glared, but Gladio just squeezed tighter and hauled him into the compartment.

Noctis turned and slam the door closed behind himself, and then Gladio had him pressed up against the door. His weight pushed into Noct and made him highly aware of how much bigger Gladio was than him.

Not that he couldn’t have escaped, had he wanted to, between the magic of the armiger and the training Gladio had drilled into him since he’d been small.

“What do you want, Gladio,” Noct gritted out, wishing it hadn’t come out pained and small.

“You to do your job, _princess_ ,” Gladio snarled in his ear, and then shoved him again, forcing the breath from Noctis’s lungs.

Noctis sucked in a desperate breath, and then Gladio drew back, flipped Noct around, and pressed his mouth to Noct’s.

Noctis opened his mouth out of instinct, and Gladio bit his lip, then shoved his tongue in, hard and mean and not at all erotic, but Noct felt the tension draining out of him anyway. This… this made more sense to him than anything yet.

This, and being Gladio’s princess, and huge calloused hands rucking his shirt up and pressing bruises into his sides.

“Hold still,” Gladio gritted out, and Noct shook his head, pushing back and refusing to listen. It wasn’t his _job_ to listen. Gladio had been pointing that out for days now, and Noct wanted-- he shoved, hard, and Gladio was surprised enough that he took a step back, and Noct followed, pushing him down into the bunk and straddling his lap.

“No,” Noct said. “You hold still.”

Gladio’s face was level with his at this angle, and Noctis took advantage of that, one hand grabbing a fistful of hair and jerking his head back, his turn to invade a mouth, though he wasn’t as comfortable with biting into it, he just wanted-- he wanted the kisses they used to have, snuck in secret after practice, when Gladio would hold him tight and tell him he was _passable_ , when he’d have to grin and pull away before anyone caught them.

Gladio’s hands on his hips were more insistent than that, though, and he was shoved loose so Gladio could undo his pants and yank them down over his hips.

Noctis fought with his own pants and then climbed right back into Gladio’s lap. Gladio grabbed both their cocks in one hand and sucked a mean bite into Noct’s neck, and Noct heard himself whining as he surged forward into the contact.

It didn’t last-- couldn’t last. Gladio didn’t want it to last, and Noct was a coward, so he came first and Gladio’s fist kept up the pace until he came, too, groaning into Noct’s skin and then jerking back and panting for breath.

He wasn’t gentle when he pushed Noctis off, and pretended not to notice when Noct’s leg buckled and he hit the ground, storming out of the compartment before he’d even got his pants buttoned.

Noctis carefully redressed, and then he sat in the corner of the compartment with his knees tucked up and tried to breathe through the desire to cry.

It was all a mess, and Noctis had never even wanted to be king.


End file.
